Salar Jung III returns to Pune after a century

A total of 129 photographs are on exhibit. There are photos of a very young Nawab Mir Yousuf Ali Khan on horseback, on a hunting trip at his Jagir Kubbal, with Nizam VII and other nobles viewing the famous statue of veiled Rebecca at the Diwan Deodi palace, near the pyramids in Egypt. There are also bigportrait-like photos of Salar Jung III in different costumes – in darbari libas, in a sherwani, a Kashmiri top and so on.

Photos of the Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad, like those of the Aina Khana, Silver Room, Dresden Gallery, Western Painting Gallery have also been displayed.

How Salar Jung II, father of Salar Jung III happened to come to Pune has an interesting story behind it, according to Ahmed Ali of Salar Jung Museum. Nizam VI and Salar Jung II used to be classmates and good friends. Later on, even when both assumed their respective offices, their relationship continued to be very informal. Some nobles, however did not seem to be very pleased with this and managed to create a rift between the two. They even took objection to Salar Jung II smoking in the Nizam’s presence! And so it came that Salar Jung II left Hyderabad in the year 1884 and settled in Pune where Salar Jung III was born in 1889.

The idea of the exhibition was originally conceived by Dr A K V S Reddy, director, Salar Jung Museum,Hyderabad, and one of its employees Purshottam. The venue of the museum was specially chosen not only because Pune happens to be the birth place of Salar Jung III, but also because the late Padmashree Dr D G Kelkar was the first recipient of the Salar Jung gold medal in 1987 awarded to him in recognition of his invaluable services in the field of museology.